1. Field
This invention relates generally to an information processor such as a personal computer. More specifically, the present invention relates to an information processor equipped with a heat radiation module and to a cooling performance determination method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various laptop type or desktop type portable personal computers have been developed. Computers of this kind are each equipped, for example, with heat generation devices such as CPUs, display controllers, hard disk drives and bus bridge devices.
In terms of a cooling mechanism for cooling the heat generation device, a heat radiation module using a fan or a heat radiation fin (heat sink) is well known.
A temperature controller, which reduces a load on a heat source down to a first predetermined load, if a housing surface temperature, being measured during detection of touching of a human body, is higher than a first predetermined surface temperature, is disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication 2006-293814.
Meanwhile, a load on an information processor such as a computer is seriously varied in accordance with content of processing of an execution object. With the load variations, the temperatures in the vicinity of the heat generation device also vary. For instance, if the load on the computer increases quickly, heat which surpasses the heat radiation performance by the heat radiation module is generated by the heat generation device, thereby, the temperatures in the vicinity of the heat generation device rise temporarily. After this, the radiate of the heat through the heat radiation module is advanced, the temperatures in the vicinity of the heat generation device fall within a certain temperature range. Thus, the temperatures in the vicinity of the heat generation device vary in accordance with the load variations.
Therefore, if it is simply determined the presence or absence of deterioration in the performance of the heat radiation module only by a comparison result between the temperature of the outside and the inside of the information processor, there is some possibility of erroneously determining the temporal increase in the load as the deterioration in the performance of the heat generation module.
Usually, to perform performance measurement of the heat generation module, it is needed for a user himself or herself to start an inspection program dedicated to the performance measurement of the heat generation module.
In this case, although the performance of the heat generation module during a specified time period in which the inspection program is executed, it is impossible to measure the performance of the heat generation module in a normal operation state of a computer in which the inspection program is not executed. To correctly determine whether or not the heat radiation module fully functions, it is needed to continuously measure the performance of the heat generation module during a normal operation period of the computer.